the end

so i'm home now :-/

the last week was pretty busy, and kind of a blur now, so i'll just do a quick summary. my last 2 finals were language and identity in nz, which was 3 essays and i was dreading taking, but i think i did an ok bs job, and anthro, which had 3 essays plus short answer and multiple choice, which i probably should have studied more for than i did. but it really doesn't matter as long as i pass because no important bio people are going to care how i did in an anthropology course, and the grade doesn't affect my gpa.

the last weekend was a mix of studying (my anthro test wasn't until monday the 30th) and lots of goodbyes. friday night we used the rest of the marshmallows and graham crackers from serita to make s'mores with the ih kids (lucy was the only remaining kiwi from ih) and natasha and colm both came as well. saturday i studied and then went to colm's birthday party at his flat. sunday i studied all day. monday i took my anthro final, and then kendall, sophie, ej, michelle, rachel, and i did a bunch of last minute errands and souvenir shopping to use up our remaining nz cash. i got tim tams and pineapple lumps and some gifts for people.

monday night was an aucc party at the mustang saloon and sophie and ej came with me and it was fun, and i said goodbye to heaps of people and it was really sad. tuesday i packed and said goodbye to sophie and kendall, and colm gave me a ride to the airport where we found a whole bunch of other aucc people giving rides and saying goodbye. espen, who is from norway was taking his kayak home with him, and he had filled it with stuff. however, apparently it was over the weight limit, because when i arrived i found him in front of the baggage check desk with kayaking gear and clothing strewn across the floor. he arrived at the gate just as we were boarding the plane, wearing about 6 shirts and at least 2 pairs of pants and looking rather sweaty ha ha.

there were a bunch of other americans i knew on the flight to la, and my seating arrangement could not have been better. i had a window seat right at the front of the cabin so i had lots of leg room and no one in front of me, and BOTH of the seats next to me were empty. it was pretty awesome. my 10 hour layover in la wasn't too awful, i found a plug and played games on my computer most of the time. after the next flight to chicago my butt was tired from sitting for so long so i lay on my stomach on the floor by the gate for awhile. the last flight to buffalo was only an hour and a half, and when i arrived it turned out one of my bags had not made it on the plane from chicago, but they said they'd deliver it that night or the next morning.

then the family took me to brunch at a diner by the airport, and we went home (via tom wahl's for ice cream) and then after showering serita and i went wakeboarding in canandaigua with uncle boz and ryan. and then i slept for most of wednesday night and thursday during the day. and that is the end of my trip to new zealand.

last aucc trip: an epic adventure

i so i will start where i left off, waking up at 6:30 am after 4 hours of sleep. twas not fun. luckily i had packed most of my stuff the night before, so i made it to the quad around 7:15 as instructed. molly and i were both riding with oyvind (aka ivan-who is from norway) as well as isaac (who is a 1st year kiwi who looks like he's in hanson) and fiona (who is irish and was teaching me the first time i rolled). i spotted oyvind's brightly painted van (named theodor) parked by the quad, and found him and isaac organizing the 5 kayaks in the back of the van. as the third to arrive, i was offered the choice between sitting in the front of the van (where there are 3 real seats) or the back (where there is a bench seat which is not attached to anything and does not have seatbelts). i said the back was fine, and then had to decide whether i wanted to face backwards of forwards (ie, kayaks in the back of the head, or no view). i went with facing forwards since that was the current position and less work. molly arrived after a bit, slightly late because her alarm didn't go off, and she piled in the back with me.

then we had to go to toni's house, which is on the north shore, to get her boat for molly to borrow. unfortunately molly didn't remember exactly how to get there, but after a few missed turns and a bit of map navigating from me, we found it, and swapped the club boat molly was supposed to have with toni's really nice creeker. this left me as the only person with a club boat, which did not help my mounting fear for the grade 3. creekers are supposed to be easier (larger volume, faster, harder to flip over and relatively easy to roll back up) and the freestyler i got is a play boat, which are smaller and the pros use to do tricks. i was assured that it's the best boat the club owns though, and there wasn't much i could do about it anyway.

after leaving toni's we went back to town, picked up fiona at britomart, and were on the motorway by 8:30. oyvind told us we were going to listen to norwegian folk music all the way there, and we were all excited but it turns out he was kidding and didn't really have any. he also turned to isaac, who was in charge of all his electronics (ipod and phone) and was like 'how's your norwegian coming?' because apparently all the menus and stuff are in norwegian. isaac replied 'ok, music is musik' and oyvind said 'yeah it's a pretty easy language, i learned it when i was like 4' (ie, as his first language. it was funny at the time i don't think i reproduced that well ha ha).

the original plan from colm said everyone should be on the motorway by 8, but we were still far ahead of "aucc time" and when colm called at 8:40 to check on us they were still at james's flat tying boats on the car. (there were just the 2 cars full, with kenny, colm, james, ross, and katrina in the other one). we stopped at a bp to fill up petrol and rearrange boats, and oyvind pulled up with the gas cap on the wrong side, which was not realized until after we had unloaded half the gear and boats from the back, so then he had to pull away and do a big loop, leaving fiona, molly and me standing in the gas station parking lot surrounded by piles of kayaking gear.

eventually we were on our way, the other car having just passed us, and we leap frogged back and forth the rest of the way, stopping once just before matamata for a potty break. molly and i probably should not have been together for that ride, because we just continued to freak ourselves and each other out more and more. i was WAY more scared than i was for skydiving, i got butterflies in my stomach every time i thought about it. we tried to play calming songs, like bob marley, followed by pump our selves up music, like modest mouse and come on eileen.

we reached the top get in just after the other car, where molly and i raced for the outhouse, and everyone got ready for the river. i had my togs, polypro leggings, 2 long sleeved polypro tops, and james's drytop which i had procured from nick on friday at school. ross had a wetsuit he was offering so after some debate i decided i may as well load up on layers and took that too, which turned out to be a GREAT choice.

after everyone was fully dressed, everyone except isaac and molly and i set off down the top of the rangitaiki. we beginners had to shuttle the cars and would then meet everyone at the get in for the mid section (easier part). both cars were standard, but luckily isaac and molly could both handle that, so first we took both cars down to the take out, where we left kenny's car (which used to be his while he was here and he sold to squirrel when he left, but ironically squirrel is at stanford (where kenny is a grad student) while he is here, so they just traded cars). then we all went in theodor back to the mid section get in, down some VERY rough dirt roads. i continued the freaking out by wondering aloud how long it might take an ambulance to arrive out there. the view of the river at the get in was perfectly flat in both directions and isaac (who is a professional raft guide and knows the river) said "oooh you don't know what's around the corner do you?" which further scared me. however it took the instructors so long to make it down to us that my fear had more or less given way to sillyness and boredom by the time they finally arrived (around 2:30).

we put our boats in and with some assistance attached my snazzy new neoprene club deck to the boat. the freestyler i was paddling is the smallest kayak i've been in yet, and had no foot pegs, so my feet were just kinda touching the front end of the boat which was a bit strange, and the thigh braces seemed like they would be hard to get out of, but i was assured it's always easy to get out when you're underwater.

after i was all situated, i first did a practice t-rescue off colm's boat just to get used to the frigid water temp (although the drytop was REALLY nice, it has double layer seals around the wrists, neck, and waist, so for brief wet experiences you stay virtually dry). after that, and with several instructors watching and prepared to t-rescue me, i tried my first river roll-and it worked!! granted, it was in the perfectly still, flat water with no rocks or whitewater, but it still made me 1000x less scared for the day ahead. hypothetically, i would be able to save myself! molly declined any sort of underwater practice, saying that if she tried and couldn't roll it would freak her out even more so it was better not to. i tried a second roll a little ways down still in the flats, and it was fine again. the only problem is every time i roll up, my contacts kinda get lost in my eyes, so when i come up i usually can't see much, which becomes a bit of a problem when you're weaving around rocks and stuff in the rapids.

before we got to the first rapids, james had us eddy out and told us some basic instruction. ie, always listen to the instructors, go in the direction they point, tell someone if we get really cold, because most everyone has snacks in their vests. and he gave us our order, with katrina leading, then kenny, then colm as the first group, then oyvind, molly, me, and ross in the second, and isaac, fiona, and james bringing up the rear. this was kenny's first grade 3 and isaac's second, but they are both far better paddlers than molly and me, so we had oyvind and ross, the two most experienced instructors (besides james) sandwiching us. i told ross if i flipped i would try rolling once and then he should come t-rescue me immediately.

and then we headed into the first rapids! i felt quite alright, but molly flipped and swam, and then requested that ross go in front of her and oyvind behind me, because she likes the way ross instructs better (worded more diplomatically). this was unfortunate for me because, as i had discovered on the wairoa trip, oyvind's boat is extremely slippery and hard to grab onto for t-rescues. but i did not complain.

the rapids were real fun though, the whole nose of the boat would go under and just pop back up. and my steering was better than i had expected, which was good because there were lots of rocks to steer around. i got stuck on top of one but ross came and gave me a push and told me which way to lean and i somehow remained upright. a few rapids later (probably the third one) i capsized next to a rock, and the combination of rock and not being prepared in setup position convinced me i couldn't roll, so i swam. for some reason i felt like it would take the instructors longer to get to me than past trips, so i generally didn't wait very long for t-rescues. james came by, had me grab the back of his boat, and towed me over to where the others had caught my boat and paddle.

after that i was just a little chilly but not too upset. i cannot say the same about 4 swims later. i'm not sure about the order of all of these, but in general every time i flipped i'd be by a rock, meaning most of the time i wouldn't even try to roll and wouldn't wait very long for a t-rescue before swimming, which would then just make me more frustrated with myself. sometime around my third swim fiona was also swimming, and since james couldn't tow us both at once and it was quite shallow, he sent us wading/swimming through the rapids, which i think would have been really fun had it not been SO cold in the water. fiona was really mad at herself for swimming, which lead me to be even more frustrated because it was already my third swim.

i think the second swim oyvind got me and had me lay on my belly across the cockpit as he paddled me over to my boat, which he said actually stabilized him like a ballast, although someone said james wouldn't approve, but he didn't seem to care when he saw. when we arrived at my boat i said "thanks for the ride" and oyvind said "my pleasure" and molly said "that sounded kinda dirty" and we all laughed.

one of the times i had held on for a t-rescue oyvind got to me, and i got my hand on his boat but couldn't reach the loop and it slipped away, i tried again, and it happened again, so then i was out of air and swam. stupid big round creeker boats!

after 2 or 3 swims i tried rolling again in another flat spot to show myself i still could, and i was fine. katrina told me that if you hold on in set-up position underwater and wait a bit sometimes you move away from the rocks and can roll up better. the next time i capsized after that i made myself stay calm and got in set-up position, and then rolled up!! that was the hilight of the entire river, by far, using my roll IN the rapids to save myself after an unexpected flip. that is really the whole purpose of rolling. it was a bit scary because as usual my contacts were not focused, so i had to make my way to the end of the rapids slightly blindly, but luckily everyone was eddyed out just after the rapids (because molly swam again), so i could stop and get settled (and celebrate my roll!). in general molly stayed upright more than me (i think she had 3 or 4 swims total and i had 5) which may have been due in part to having toni's boat (or because she is a better paddler than me, she just freaks out underwater immediately).

during my worst swim, somehow my boat and i ended up in a little eddy right next to a lot of rushing rapids which would be pretty impossible for me to eddy into without flipping. james got to me and got out of his boat and after some pondering of the situation he told me to get in my boat and he would raft me past the rapids to my paddle. however after some more pondering and gesturing at all the people standing on the bank downstream, james told me to get back out, climb over some rocks and a fallen tree, and he'd meet me in the next eddy and tow me down. he then stood up and threw my boat as far out in the river as he could, got in his boat and paddled over to me, and warned me that it was very shallow so my knees might get beat up, but there was no other way. it actually wasn't that bad, i think the wetsuit helped a lot, and we reached the others safely, where they had caught my boat and paddle.

at one point while james was rescuing me and most of the others were further downstream, we saw kenny's boat wedged upside down pretty firmly on some rocks in the middle of the river, and when we reached everyone else we discovered in addition to kenny and me, molly and isaac were also swimming.

another time i was stuck without a paddle and oyvind was there so james had him raft me down, which is where we face our boats opposite directions and line them up next to each other and i hold onto either side of his cockpit ("for dear life" as james told me repeatedly) as he paddles one-sided on the side where i am not. it seemed risky, but oyvind told me as long as i was holding his boat so it was tipping towards me we would not flip, and sure enough, we made it safely. it was actually quite fun, and a nice break from paddling. after we had made it oyvind told me that was the first time he'd every done that!

it was probably a bad sign that my arms started feeling tired before we had even reached the first rapid, and that may have been related to the pump class i had stupidly gone to friday night. you are supposed to aggressively paddle through rapids and i think as i got more tired i was paddling less, which made me less stable, which made me flip more. after my 4th swim i flipped right next to oyvind, got into set-up position to roll, but was just so physically drained i couldn't, but luckily he was right there to t-rescue and somehow i actually grabbed his boat that time and made it up without swimming.

by that time it was getting dark quite quickly, and james said sunset was at 5, dusk at 5:30, and that it was currently 5:15, so we needed to really move so as to not be on the river in the dark. and we had to stay closer together now because it was harder to see. at this point i felt completely exhausted, so i asked oyvind if he would raft me again and he agreed, so i tried to tuck my paddle under my arm like james had said but it got caught and in the process of trying to hold on to it i lost my grip on oyvind, and flipped once again, this time with no paddle from the start. i swam, clinging to my upside down boat, to the side where everyone was congregating, but just as i reached the rock, the current took my boat and it swept past ross who was just downstream, and who proceeded to start yelling and swearing as molly's boat also floated past us upside down.

at that point i would have done anything to be able to stop paddling, and katrina, fiona, and oyvind wanted to get off the river because of the dark, so they, isaac, molly and i dragged the 4 remaining boats with us up the bank, and james, ross, kenny, and colm went on to catch the lost boats, saying to meet them at the getout.

isaac, who works with the commercial rafting companies and knows the area pretty well said there should be a walking path reasonably close running along the river, so we started "bush bashing" our way through the thick trees and bush, working together to move all the boats with us. most of us had some sort of water shoes or sandals, but katrina and molly were barefoot. i don't think i could have made it through that without shoes, they were very tough.

before we were very far into the woods isaac went down the river a bit and somehow found molly's (toni's) boat where the instructors had caught it, and he brought that back, somehow finding his way back to us (i'm not entirely sure how all of that worked out, now that i think about it). anyway, that left us with 5 boats and 6 people, so the last person (we took turns) carried all the paddles, which oyvind lashed together loosely with one of the bajillion carabiners he had with him.

in the forest it was almost completely dark, and none of us had any form of light (oyvind said after this he is going to keep some glow sticks in his boat). we also had no phones or anything, but isaac, oyvind and katrina all had whistles, which they would blow every now and then, hoping for a response from the others. we also counted off or took turns saying our names periodically to make sure no one had gotten lost, since visibility was virtually 0. i was following the person in front of me based on a combination of feeling for their dragging kayak, occasional glimpses of the boats' bright colors, and following voices.

isaac and katrina were leading, and we were sort of aiming for what looked like pine trees in a general uphill direction, because pine forest would have been much easier to walk through than the native bush. as we followed a little stream we saw a bunch of glow worms which was pretty cool, i told everyone all about what we learned at the waitomo caves. it was very slow going and scary because we didn't really know where we were going, but as long as we kept moving we were plenty warm, and i was still kind of having fun being extreme at that point. there was occasional talk about what we would do to keep warm if we had to sleep out, i suggested making a tepee out of all the boats which katrina thought was really funny. eventually we reached a very steep part which isaac thought might be next to a waterfall in the little stream, and we decided to hoist all the kayaks up and keep going that way. as soon as we emerged on the top, we discovered a lovely wide grassy walking path! we were ecstatic and very impressed with isaac's guidance.

however, after a few minutes of triumphantly following trail in the direction of the getout, we encountered a large tree fallen across the path. assuming the trail continued on the other side, we proceeded to work together to hoist all the boats up, over, and through the tree(s), and scrambled over ourselves. however, on the other side we were greeted by more fallen trees. there seemed to be a clearing up ahead, in front of a ridge with a line of pine trees along the top. from atop one of the piles of branches oyvind said it looked like if we could get to the clearing it wouldn't be too hard to get to the top of the ridge, where there was probably some sort of road or path. so we continued on, heaving boats and ourselves over tree after tree.

we were still blowing the whistles intermittently, and somewhere along there we heard voices from somewhere on the hill, yelling what sounded like "colm" and something about "car". we yelled all our names to tell them we were all ok, but then the voices went away. since they sounded like they were approximately in the direction we were going, we kept aiming for the gap in trees at the top of the ridge.

before we had really reached the steep incline part, we heard more voices coming from the vague direction of the river, and saw what we thought might be a light. it turned out to be ross and james, who had successfully paddled to the getout, changed quickly, and driven theodor as far as they could up the walking path, until they encountered the beginning of the tree felling from the other end. they had then been walking/bush bashing in a zigzag upriver direction looking and calling for us. james had his phone, which somehow had excellent service there, and ross had a flashlight. apparently ross and kenny had had my lost boat with them and had stopped somewhere between where we got out and the end of the run, so it must have been them we had heard calling earlier.

james and ross were adamant that we could not make it back the way they had come with the boats, although we tried to tell them we had been doing roughly the same thing for the majority of the time since we had last seen them. according to james's phone it was about 8pm by then. the cleared hillside route still looked pretty direct so ross went up ahead of us and said it was tough, but he reached the top, so we followed on, going struggling more and more the steeper it got. "cleared" is not a good description word. we were climbing over felled trees, rarely touching the ground. several times i fell down with my legs hanging between trees and still couldn't touch the ground. i was near the back, with isaac and james, and james helped carry the boat i was dragging for awhile, and i felt bad because katrina and molly were still making progress with boats and without shoes and i was ready to give up.

partway up james got a text from colm, saying he and kenny had left the 3 boats by the river, been found by a family hunting possums, and the cops were on their way. after awhile we saw heard sirens and saw lights at the top of the hill and we yelled to them all our names again and that we were ok. kenny came partway down with a flashlight and said the cops were anxious to see all of us safely up there in person, but james and oyvind were not about to leave the boats at that point so james told kenny to tell them "not in these words we're all fine and we're on our f-ing way". i think somewhere most of the way up fiona, molly and katrina gave up on their boats because they got to the top (although their boats were at the top when we got there so i'm not sure how they got there) and the cop gave them a ride down to the car at the get out while kenny and colm waited at the top for us and for the cop to come back.

when we were the majority of the way up and i was ready to sit down and give up again ross threw a throwbag to us, which james tied to the two remaining kayaks, and then while isaac held one end and ross had the other around a tree, james and i climbed up using the rope as a hand rail, which made it much easier. then james, ross, and oyvind hauled the rope with the 2 boats up with pure brute strength. i attempted to help but i don't think i was very useful ha ha. ross then directed me to an area where there was actual ground to walk on (instead of climbing from tree to tree) and he and oyvind went up higher and secured the rope again, and we repeated the hauling the boats up move a couple more times.

kenny then found his way down to us and we all grabbed some rope and just walked the rest of the way dragging the boats, and colm met us with a very large bottle of water which we polished off quite quickly. we finally emerged by a big "digger" (some sort of backhoe thing) and the cop came back shortly and somehow we all fit into his truck. oyvind, isaac and i (the only ones who were still in wet/dirty river gear) got put in the lockup cage in the back which was very squashed but at that point it was great to be sitting, and the others who had changed piled into the front (the other girls had gone back in the first trip to the car already). when we arrived at the get out we found them huddled in the car sharing colm's bottle of vodka and some chocolate. the cop and james went to go get theodor. the cop didn't believe that they had actually driven up the very rough muddy walking track at first, but somehow they got in and out without getting stuck. we also discovered that one of theodor's side windows was sitting on the front seat, apparently it was somehow ripped off during the trail driving, but oyvind said he couldn't figure out how to reattach it until the morning.

when they got back we changed out of the disgusting wet gear which we left in the back of the van (oyvind jumped in the river to wash off which we all thought was absolutely nuts, but he is from norway so i guess he's used to cold). colm and james talked to the cop for awhile, i really hope the club/james doesn't get in trouble (especially since he let me and molly come and we may not have been entirely ready). as i was peeing in the bushes along the road, i was alarmed to see the possum hunters coming (they are easy to see because as was explained to me, possum hunting involves driving around the woods shining bright lights around, and when you shine the light on a possum it freezes, and then it's just like target practice). i managed to pull my pants up before i made it into the spotlight though ha ha. apparently when they found colm and kenny they had asked if we were from auckland (remember everyone else in nz hates auckland) and they replied that kenny was from california (well, he goes to school there) and colm was from ireland (he visited there...). they also told them that if we had had to spend the night the best thing to do is dig a hole and everyone take off all wet clothes (including polypro) and get in and then cover ourselves with branches and leaves. good thing it did not come to that!

as things were winding down they tied the boats to the car and we returned to the van which we drove up to where we had left the boats and somehow managed to fit the 6 of them into the back of the van. then we had a very chilly drive (especially for molly and me in the back next to the missing window) to rotorua to get food and figure out what we were doing for the night. james had texted his parents while we were scaling the mountain telling them that we were all safe but might not be coming after all (we were supposed to have spent the night there after getting off the river before 5). poor toni, who had not been crazy about loaning out her beloved boat and had told molly she could use it if she promised not to swim (obviously that goal was lost ages ago), was getting alarming texts from ross about what had just happened, and molly was reassuring her that her boat was safe, if a bit dirty. oyvind had not slept the night before and was quite keen to have some beers, so isaac drove while oyvind and fiona polished off quite a few beers, and molly and i slept.

we pulled into rotorua a little after 11, and saw, to our dismay, that burger fuel had just closed so we ended up at burger king and i was forced to break what was left of my no-american-fast-food pledge. i washed my hands about 5 times (which was quite painful with soap in the cuts and scrapes), but could not remove the dirt from under my nails. i also discovered a minor scrape where i had taken a branch in the nose, but it wasn't nearly as bad as i had been fearing. i got a double cheeseburger, and somehow the lady messed up the order so i ended up with fries and a sprite too (although i would have preferred water). after eating it was decided that rather than driving 2 hours to james's parents' in tauranga, we would spend the night at isaac's cousin's house which was much closer to rotorua, since ross and james had to run the river again the next day to rescue the 3 boats colm and kenny had left. we had also been planning to go to the grocery store to get food for a breakfast feast and a lot of alcohol (i think i owed most of the instructors a case of rescue beers each), but as we discovered around 12:15, the grocery store closed at midnight.

so we piled back into the van for an even less enjoyable ride now that it was raining in the missing window, but the ride wasn't long (and i think i fell asleep). somehow my ipod fell out of my bag and got wet, and kenny rescued it for me. (it's currently drying out. hopefully it still works ok). when we got there we went in quietly and isaac took us up to this whole little apartment area where we discovered most of the lights didn't work and there was no hot water (which was actually probably best because we ALL wanted hot showers and that would have been very competitive), but there was plenty of floor space and extra blankets so we all made ourselves comfortable and went to sleep. there was this cool bay window-type bed overlooking the lake right outside which kenny claimed, and then i suggested colm could share with him and no one would know what was going on behind the curtains, and then colm was telling me about his drunken new years escapades in ireland until molly said "i love you both but shut up" so then we went to sleep.

in the morning it was absolutely pouring rain so we were lazy and just sat around in our sleeping bags for a long time. oyvind got up before the rest of us and went out to reattach the window on theodor (the night before we had had to convince him that sleeping out there in the back of the window-less van in the rain was not a good idea, and when we were going to sleep he said "i feel so bad for theodor right now" ha ha). kenny and colm went back to town to get supplies for breakfast, and when they got back we went into the main part of the house, where isaac's 18 year old cousin is currently living alone i guess? he was pretty quiet, but really nice and let us take over his whole house. i made french toast for everyone, katrina fried saussages, kenny made scrambled eggs, and there were hash browns and roasted tomatoes and baked beans and probably a lot of other things i don't remember, and we had a delicious brunch around noon.

after sitting around relaxing some more ross and james and oyvind had to get going to fetch the abandoned boats, and fiona went with them to drive the shuttle. the rest of us had a lovely day filled with very little movement and lots of good rainy day activities. we tried to collaborate on a crossword puzzle but even with 7 people our general knowledge seemed to be lacking. we played cards (colm suggested scum, isaac suggested 2's high, and i suggested asshole. turns out they are all different names for the same game ha ha). there was this jar with little white round things on the table land i asked what they were. isaac and colm both put one in their mouth and pretended they were mints for a while before isaac announced they were bb gun bullets ha ha. so then katrina came over and they were like 'want one?' and i started laughing uncontrollably and she was like 'what are they?' and they told her they were mints and she said 'oh yum sure!' and took one and then spit it out, despite my hysterical laughter.

i beat molly and katrina at guess who until they did not want to play anymore, and then later i was saying how i always win and no one will play with me, and then colm proceeded to beat me the first 2 games we played, so i said best out of 5, and won the next two, but then lost the last one ha ha. and we made s'mores finally with the supplies serita brought me and what was left of the chocolate from the breakfast grocery mission. katrina agreed that our marshmallows are superior, but no one else seemed as excited as i thought they should be. and we watched babel, which was seemed pretty intense but then the ending was kind of anticlimactic and depressing. by the time it was getting dusky again we grudgingly decided we should get ready to go meet the others at the secret spot.

unfortunately by the time we were loading stuff into and tying boats onto the car it was dark once again, and still pouring rain but eventually we got everything more or less secured, and crammed all 6 of us into the car. molly and i were not too keen on going in the secret spot, partially because my bathing suit was with my wet polypro which were all mia, and since it was cold and wet out, but i had reconciled myself to it since it was my last chance. as we were going past burger fuel and had just decided we need to stop on the way home, we got a text from the others saying the secret spot was cold because of all the rain, so molly and i were happy and they just came to meet us at burger fuel.

i got what were probably my last kumara fries (delicious as always) and a chocolate malt shake (not as exciting as i had heard but still yummy). when the others arrived james was wearing one shoe and ross (whose toenails have been painted pink or purple as long as i have known him) came in with no shoes and a towel around his waist, but their mission had been a success. i'm not sure if he had anything under or not haha. after eating we then had to unload and retie boats in the parking lot (still in the rain), which got us some weird looks, and we decided to just sort out everyone's gear at james's flat back in auckland. the drive back was uneventful, i slept a lot. at james's i used his bathroom and helped sort gear into piles in the grass (club gear, james's gear, other people's stuff). i found my wet gear shoved in one of the boats with all the other wet stuff (except i couldn't find one of my water shoes, which is fine because i'm planning on throwing them out anyway). i was saying how i did not want to say goodbye and katrina came and gave me a hug and it was cute, but molly said she's gonna have a final party next weekend so i decided it was not necessary to say permanent goodbyes to everyone.

colm then took me, fiona, molly, and ross home in his car, which was quite cozy with all our gear since his trunk was already full. there was a box of food leftover from breakfast (including these "bacon and cheese hamburger rolls" which kenny and i thought sounded weird but colm had insisted on buying, and then someone later thought the rolls were hamburger flavoured, not for hamburgers which was really funny), which we were going to donate to isaac because earlier in the semester i guess his parents were gone and he had no money and no food, but apparently his parents have since returned so colm was elected next most needy on the food chain. we were all being silly and giggly on the way home and it was so much fun and i'm really sad to be leaving all the canoe club people. ha ha ross told me i laugh too much and we were making fun of colm because apparently he never updated his license or something so is not technically not supposed to be driving after 10pm. i was also really confused when we stopped at a light next to a bus and i kept feeling like we were rolling backwards but they said it was the bus going forwards but i was not convinced.

when we got to ih it was just colm and ross left, and i was discussing when i would see them again (so as not to have to say goodbye forever), and i suggested one of them give me a ride to the airport when i leave which they did not sound thrilled about, but also did not actually say no. then i got out and went to get my stuff out of the trunk and colm started to pull away ha ha, i wasn't sure if he was just messing with me but apparently he forgot i had to get stuff out after that very long discussion ha ha.

so i came up to my room, took a shower and went to bed. and now it's 4 pm on monday and all i have done is my laundry and this enormous blog. so i guess it's time to start studying.

the beginning of the end

so this past week i had my first 2 tests, linguistics of the pacific which was pretty easy, identical to the past years' exams, and computer science, which was rather difficult but i'm glad it's over. i thought that midterm was really had too and then i did way better than i expected, so hopefully that happens again.

tuesday night was the ies sendoff dinner. kendall was on the south island and ej was in tokyo, so sophie went and found gael's new office where she gave us a powerpoint and we talked about how we've changed here and how to cope with going home and a lot of boring bs stuff. sophie and i were rather antisocial because most of the other ies kids hang out all the time, and our little ih group doesn't really see anyone else. then we went to dinner at this really nice restaurant off of queen st, and gael said we could all get 2 courses, ie 1 main and either an entree or a desert. i ended up getting an entree (bread and some sort of spreadey cheese dip), and instead of a main the soup of the day (tomato with bacon) and a meatball salad. the salad was delicious and quite large enough for the whole dinner, and the soup was mediocre, but of course i ate it all and felt very full.

wednesday night jessica, one of the americans in the canoeing club had a farewell party at a bar near campus and sophie and i went and hung out for awhile and it was lots of fun. the bartender was this really nice asian man who brought around plates of free fries to us, and was giving a lot of people free drinks. when we got there there were lots of people, but many of them left pretty quickly, and jess, sophie, travis (from california), craig (instructor), and james (aucc vp) and i stayed til midnight when the bartender told us they were closing. jessica didn't want anyone to leave and it was the first really sad goodbye.

i had been spending most of my time studying comp sci until wednesday, but unfortunately that's about when sophie started studying for her exams at the end of the week, and the others were still away travelling, so i was quite antisocial thursday and friday.

however sometime earlier in the week colm sent out an email organizing a paddling trip for this weekend in honor of kenny, who studied here last year and is back visiting. since the trip was only grade 3 and up, i hadn't been planning on going, but one of the emails said it was "suitable for beginners breaking into grade 3" and "yes james says molly can go", and i am approximately at the same level as molly, and since i had absolutely nothing to do and no one to do it with i figured why not go all out for a last kayaking experience here, so i emailed colm and asked if i could come and he checked with james who said i could. eek!

also while discussing the plans for the weekend colm invited me to come hang out with "kenny and company" friday night which i thought might be slightly awkward because i'm not super close with most of the older club members, but since there wasn't much else going on he eventually convinced me. i took the bus to ponsonby and texted colm to see if they were still at his flat or out at the bars, and he said come to his flat which i luckily more or less remembered how to get to. when i got there it was just colm, ross, and kenny, and they included me nicely and it was lots of fun. a recurring topic of conversation was whether or not i was going to die the following day, ha ha. they decided it would be cheaper to walk up the street to the liquor store and just hang out at colm's than it would be to go to the bars, a decision i was a big fan of. so we went to the liquor store, which colm was claiming he had never been to or something and as we walked in the guy working there was like "hey colm!!" ha ha. supposedly they went to high school together. a likely story.

after they purchased some beer, vodka, and mixers we went back, and (kiwi)sophie and katrina came over and we just hung out and twas lots of fun. colm had this powerade powder which they tried dissolving in vodka instead of water, with poor results, but when grapefruit juice was added to the concoction it turned out surprisingly well. we ended up watching this aussie movie called "castle" or something, about a family whose house is supposed to be demolished in order to expand the nearby airport and their refusal to leave (the family members seemed to be somewhere on the border of stupid and actually retarded). it was pretty funny.

after some more hanging out it turned out to be almost 2 am, which was bad news because a) the link bus stops running at 11:30 and b) all of us except sophie had to leave in the 7 am hour the next morning. luckily katrina was going past uni on her way home so she and ross gave me a ride, and i was in bed by 2:30, with an alarm set for 6:30.

the trip needs its on blog entry, so that will be next.

north island grand tour

soo riley had been talking about coming up to visit me for quite awhile, and possibly arriving on monday, but when i had not heard from him on sunday i assumed he was not coming. but he and his friend jessie (who i met when we were down there) got last minute tickets and arrived around 10pm on monday night, so i have been gone all week doing as much north island stuff as possible in 4 days.

since we were leaving tuesday morning, sophie had the excellent idea that we should get brian to climb the crane on the construction site next to ih with us (i don't remember if i said this before, but brian and ace and ollie have climbed this crane 4 or 5 times at night now, and i had been wanting to but missed all of their adventures so far). so we found brian but he was watching a movie and said come back in 20 minutes, so sophie and i took riley and jessie on a quick walking tour of downtown. we went down symonds st, showed them the uni campus, down quay st to the viaduct (to see the billboard with the blowing skirt) and then up to the base of the sky tower, up queen st to wakefield, and then back to ih. they were not in love with the city overall, and agreed that all the hills here are ridiculous.

we then went back to brian's room and as our "crane guide" he took us into the construction site and lead us up the crane. i was really not very scared at all, although after climbing 13+ floors worth of ladders my arms were getting a tad tired (which may also have been related to the 2 step/pump classes i went to earlier in the day). the view at the top was absolutely amazing, and we took lots of pictures. it was quite windy up there, and when it started raining we started back down. it was a bit scarier going down all those ladders in the rain, but we all made it safely back, and after booking a hostel for wellington on thursday night (riley and jessie were being cheap and wanted to camp the first and maybe second nights), we went to bed.

tuesday we were supposed to pick up the car at 8 am, but did not leave ih until after 8. riley and jessie insisted on coming with me, and we told sophie we'd pick her and our bags up from ih. as we were driving away from the rental place i noticed the gas was only 2/3 full, so after a u-turn in the considerable traffic of a weekday morning, i went back to the office and the man told me we only needed to return it half full in wellington. so we did another u-turn, got sophie and our bags, and headed for our first destination, the coromandel peninsula, about a 2 hour drive from auckland.

our first visit was to cathedral cove, which is towards the top on the east (pacific) side. it's this big sort of arch formed in the rock, and is apparently in the new narnia movie. the guidebook said it was a 20 minute walk down from the parking lot and a 40 min walk back, so we strolled down, and took a detour to see gemstone bay, which was a really pretty little cove with a lot of big rocks down to the water. we scrambled around on the rocks and gradually moved further along the shore, where we eventually ended up on another beach that we thought should have a path back to the main trail, but we could not find one. luckily, as the tide was coming in (causing the beach to disappear) we saw some people in the woods and discovered that there was in fact a path, which we would have completely missed had the people not been there.

so we found our way back, and continued on to cathedral cove. the path at one point led thru some farmland and there was a bench at a scenic overlook, except the bench was on the other side of an electric fence (well, we didn't test to see if it was actually electric). after going down a lot of stairs in what felt like the jungle, we emerged on a beach and to our left was cathedral cove. we took lots of pictures and played in the sand (it was quite warm in the sun, probably in the high 60s or low 70s, and the christchurch kids did not believe me that it is getting cold here, especially since they had significant snow there right before they left). anyway, after a few hours we headed back (UPhill) to the car, where we had some of the 12 pbjs i had made at ih.

then we drove on to hotwater beach, where you are supposed to be able to dig a hole in the sand and it will form a natural hot tub. however, i guess it only works at low tide, and when riley asked at the visitor center they said low tide was at 6am and 8pm. we were confused because that seems like a very slow tide, so we decided to go around 1 (halfway in the middle). turns out they may have been right because the water was pretty high at that point. we tried digging some random holes which only filled with cold water, and jessie built a sand castle and riley built a very impressive whale.

after that we drove back down the peninsula, and made our way to rotorua, via matamata and tirau, where we saw the obligatory hobbit hole and corrugated metal decorations, although it was getting dark. gas in auckland had been at $2.00/litre since serita and i had last traveled, 3 weeks ago, and i hadn't bothered to fill up there, but by that evening it was either 2.06 or 2.09 most places, so after trying to wait for another 2.00 deal we were nearing empty and ended up paying 2.09. lame as.

the original plan had been to go to the secret spot and then burger fuel in rotorua, but we were all starving as we entered rotoroua, so we went to burger fuel first, and it was delicious, although i was the only one who got kumara fries. we then changed into our bathing suits in the burger fuel bathroom (and some guy walked in on my changing ha ha), and then drove to the secret spot. when we arrived we were the only ones there, and it was dark and muddy and smelled like sulfur and i warned them not to put their heads in the water, and they accused me of taking them swimming in sewage ha ha. it was amazing and warm as always, and while we were there a local couple joined us and left, and a whole bunch of what i think were local high school kids came. they were quite loud and drunk but fairly entertaining, and we talked to them for awhile. one of them told us several times how 'this is just our local swimming pool' and they said in the morning we should go see the boiling mud pools at the other end of the road.

after several hours we were VERY pruney (sophie was scared it was going to be permanent) we dragged ourselves out and changed quickly in the middle of the road. then we drove back towards town and found a pull-off picnic area place that riley and jessie said should be good for camping. i asked if they wanted me to 'back up for easy access' (to the trunk with their camping stuff!) and everyone absolutely died laughing. anyway, they pitched their tent and sophie and i prepared to sleep in the car, at which point i discovered i had forgotten my sleeping bag. i did have my blankie and pillow, as well as every jacket i own here, so i didn't think it would be too cold. i was wrong, it was very cold. there was frost in the morning, as well as some roosters that were awake and crowing LONG before the sun was up. overall, not the most restful night ever, but it was free.

wednesday morning we took sophie to town to catch her bus back to auckland (she had tests this week, and had done most of the other stuff we were doing). we got groceries (we were flying thru the pbjs, so we got bread, pb, j, pasta, pancake mix, timtams and some fruit), and i used my $25 kathmandu voucher to get a warm hat since i sent mine home with serita. then we headed towards taupo, stopping at the recommended mud pools, which were pretty cool, but very smelly. we also stopped at puzzle world and played for awhile, although riley got very frustrated because he does not like puzzles.

after that we stopped at huka falls, saw the falls, and did the 2 hour return walking path along the waikato river towards taupo. again, it was quite warm in the sun and a bit sweaty, but it was really pretty. there was a hotwater stream that other people were swimming in but we did not. after returning to the car we continued on into taupo and parked by the lake and had some pbj. we walked around town a little, and riley tried the 'taupo hole in 1 competition' where you try to hit a golf ball from the shore into a hole on a raft floating out in the lake. his first shot was not even close, and the second one, the head of the golf club went flying into the lake ha ha.

after wandering around town for awhile we got more gas and drove on to turangi, the nearest town to tongariro national park, where we would be doing the tongariro crossing hike the next day. i slept most of the ride (while riley drove, don't worry ha ha) and awoke at the isite where we stopped get info about the hike, and figure out where to stay (i had convinced them that a warm, comfortable bed before and after hiking would be worth the 20ish bucks). the lady told us that the shuttles to and from the crossing are $35, and there was only a tiny bit of snow at the top so we didn't need to get crampons, and that we could rent anything else we needed (i needed hiking boots, and we might want waterproof pants) from a shop in town, but when we went there they said to go to the hostel across the street, or else some of the shuttles had gear for hire. we decided to stay at the hostel right there, which turned out to be really nice, probably in my top 3 i've been to here. the kitchen and bathroom were super nice and clean, and they even had their own rock climbing wall!

i'm pretty sure the lady who checked us in was the owner, she was very friendly and kind of reminded me of ms garrahan. after finding our room (8 person dorm) we turned on the heater because it was freezing, and made dinner. we made pasta with this red sauce with "spicy peppers" in it. i'm not sure how we ended up purchasing that because riley generally cannot handle spicy food, but it was yummy and we at the entire 500g package of pasta, and a lot of cookies afterward. we ate and hung out after in the lounge area, which included a fireplace and a tv, which was first playing some chick flickish movie i'd never seen before, and then we watched the panic room after and i attempted to study a little linguistics. after that we played cards for a little bit, and then went to bed in our room, which was quite warm and toasty by then (and sophie had left me her sleeping bag which was good because bedding cost extra).

thursday morning we were up bright and early (and much better rested than the previous night) for the crossing. now i was a bit apprehensive about doing the crossing, since people who had gone several weeks ago had needed crampons, and had warned me how cold it was. in addition, riley and jessie are quite the experienced trampers. they go for hikes that last several days most weekends. riley told me i was acting like we were scaling everest, and to calm down. the fact that the weather was good and snow-less did make me feel better. we packed everything we would need (a bajillion layers, an entire loaf of bread made into pbj, lots of water, and some granola bars) into jessie's big backpack, which riley carried for basically the whole day (i guess hers is more comfortable than his). the lady from the hostel took us in the bus at 7:30 to the mountain, and we were there by 8. she told us her husband would be waiting to pick us up in the car park at the other end at 3:30, and he would wait for us until 4:30, so to be sure we were there by then.

there was a little fog but it was supposed to burn off pretty quickly. it was pretty chilly outside, so to start off i was wearing a tanktop, courtney's under armor-ish t shirt she loaned me, my polypro, and my northface on top, and my polypro leggings and ur sweat pants (as well as 2 pairs of warm socks with my rented hiking boots), and my snowboarding gloves and new hat from kathmandu. the beginning hour or 2 was actually pretty flat, although i had forgotten what it's like walking at riley's speed, and i requested several stops, to stretch my shins and apply bandaids to my heels. the rented hiking boots were actually pretty comfortable though, i was expecting much worse.

after a potty stop at soda springs, we started up the so-called "devil's staircase" which is about 1000 stairs in a row winding up the mountain. we were definitely not cold anymore by the top! we eventually emerged in the south crater, at the base of mt. ngauruhoe, aka mt. doom from the lord of the rings. we had been told by several people that in the winter there isn't enough daylight to have time to do the 2 hour side tracks to the summits of the mountains, but riley said he "needed to summit something" and although he tried to convince me to as well i declined and told them i'd meet them at the hut further on. we fashioned a make-shift pack for me out of my waterproof pants and scarf to hold my warm layers, water, and some granola bars, and they set off to scramble up very steep gravel skree and i took a much more leisurely pace (both because it was more enjoyable that way and so i wouldn't be waiting for them for hours to catch up).

in the process of dawdling i met 2 guys, serge from toronto and gui from brazil, who were also going quite slowly. i ended up walking with them the rest of the way and we stopped to take lots of pictures and somehow i was the fast one in that group ha ha. after crossing the flat south crater, we continued on upward. this was the hardest part, because it was a combination of gravel skree and slippery ice, and we did most of it on all 4s. at the top we were rewarded with an amazing view of both mountains and the red crater, and a lot of wind. we were above the clouds, although the fog seemed to be rising up the side of mt. ngauruhoe, and i could not see riley and jessie which concerned me a little.

after one more much gentler climb we were at the highest point in the walk (except the summits), at 1900 meters. in front of us were the emerald lakes, which SO pretty. my canadian friend wanted to know if it was possible to swim in them in summer, but i'm pretty sure it's sulfuric acid or something else nasty that makes the nice colors ha ha. the way down the other side was fun, sort of sliding down the gravel skree (it's much more fun going down than up, surprise surprise). we stopped partway down for lunch, and my new friends offered me all kinds of food since my sandwiches were with riley. i had half a ham sandwich which was delicious, and some dried apricots. after more pictures we continued on down, past the emerald lakes, over to the blue lake, which was also pretty from a distance, but not too exciting up close. i took a potty stop behind some bushes.

after another small incline we started the final descent which the sign said took 3-4 hours, and since it was after 1 they got a little worried, but even at our slow speed we were making better time than the signs suggested so i wasn't too concerned. the path down was nice and gentle, although i nearly lost my pants-sack over the side of a cliff at one point. the entire walk from the beginning had been above the tree line, so the plants were just kind of scrubby lichen stuff, but they were pretty patchworkey looking colors, and there were random steam vents here and there. eventually we saw the hut that's only 1-2 hours from the end where i was planning to meet riley and jessie, and after winding down the hill some more we arrived! there were a bunch of other people there, including some american guys whose friends had also decided to summit ngauruhoe. luckily riley and jessie were not far behind us, probably less than 15 minutes, and when they arrived we inhaled some pbjs and rested for awhile. they said it was very icy at the top and they had fun but i probably wouldn't have. so it's good i was stubborn and didn't go. the other kids' friends still hadn't shown up so they went on without them, and my slow friends took off, and then we eventually left around 3 (the lady had said to try to leave the hut by 2:30, but we're speedy). after some more walking some trees gradually appeared, until we were walking through the jungle. after what felt like forever we emerged in the car park around 4:15 (after catching up with my slow friends again, who had left the hut like half an hour before us).

the ride back to the hostel was pretty quick, and we happily removed our boots and went to the bathroom, and then took off for the 4.5 hour drive to wellington. i had planned on being exhausted so riley drove and i navigated and was the dj, but i actually didn't sleep the whole time. we didn't stop at all until we got off SH 1 in wellington around 8. after locating our hostel (nomad's capital flashpackers) on the map, it took us 3 loops around to get to it. the streets in wellington are incredibly confusing, nothing is at right angles and there are random pedestrian-only sections.

we checked in, and found out that the free dinner (the reason we had paid $2 more for this hostel) was only from 6-7 and we had missed it. we took one load of stuff up to our room, which contained 3 single and 1 double bed, and had an ensuite bathroom. i was dying to shower (i hadn't since monday evening), but we had to either return the car or find a parking spot for the night. riley said parking couldn't be that expensive and none of us felt like walking all the way back from the rental place, so while i showered he and jessie went to find a parking lot or garage. however they returned with the rest of our belongings and said it was $38 for the night. so we then drove back past the ferry terminal to the car rental depot, which it turns out was VERY far from downtown. after walking a ways in the cold (we were all quite miserable at that point) we found a bus stop and for $1.50 got a ride back to town. finding our hostel turned out to be a bit of a mission again, even on foot, but once we got back i went to work making dinner (pancakes, where all you do is add water to the container and shake!) while the other 2 showered.

the kitchen was not nearly as nice as the previous one, but it worked, and jessie came down and we made the entire batch of pancakes, and then inhaled them, as well as some more cookies riley had gotten to cheer us up. we played cards and talked to some of the other kids at the hostel (who all seemed to know each other?) and played cards and watched part of the lion king, and finally went to bed, having missed out on the free drink from the adjoining bar as well as our free dinner because we were too exhausted to go out.

after discovering our heater did not work, i went down to the desk and the man tried to find us another one, but returned to say all he could offer us was extra blankets. we declined since we all had sleeping bags, and riley took the double bed and the blanket off the extra bed. luckily no one else turned up to stay in our room that night.

saturday morning we got up at 9 and repacked all our stuff into our bags, and checked out. since the hostel wanted to charge us $3 to keep our bags while we walked around all day we decided our first mission was to find another hostel for riley and jessie for that night where we could leave our stuff. i found the cambridge hotel, our other top choice on the map, and we walked over there and i waited outside while they went in (and took my stuff with them) and got their room (which ended up costing only $19 instead of $25 at nomad's). i had forgotten, but wellington is called the windy city for a reason! there was a sign on the door that said "caution, extreme wind conditions" ha ha.

our only activity planned for the day was te papa, the new zealand national museum, which was supposed to be really cool, and free, so we walked over to that. riley wanted mcdonalds for breakfast, but when we got there it was like 10:38 so they didn't have breakfast anymore, so he got 2 cheeseburgers instead. and i saw that they had soft ice cream for 50 cents, which i'm pretty sure is even cheaper than home!

te papa was indeed pretty cool. we started at the natural disaster exhibit, and learned all about volcanoes, earth quakes, flash floods, and all kinds of other things that happen here. there was an earthquake simulator like the volcano one in auckland, which wasn't quite as cool, but there was lots of other hands on stuff to play with. we also looked at a lot of marine life exhibits, and maori and pacific artifacts. by the time we reached the third floor we were getting a bit museum-ed out, and still had 3 floors to go! we did a speed tour of the 4th floor, and played in the children's section with some pacific drums and stuff, and decided we had seen enough and were very hungry (it was after 1). so we went back to the hostel and got some more pbj, which we ate on a bench on courtenay place under a weird robot sculpture. while there we noticed that the cables running along above most of the streets did not have any corresponding tracks in the street for a cable car, and then that a lot of the city buses were actually attached to the cables, while in other respects they looked just like the normal auckland buses. i'm guessing they are electric powered via the cables, but i wonder what happens if the bus driver forgets to turn when the cable turns or something. anyway, after lunch i still had soft ice cream on my mind so we went and got some, although riley thought it tasted weird, i enjoyed it.

the other possible activity i had for us was a free tour of parliament (we had seen the famous beehive building on our way back the night before), but they didn't want to do that, so we just wandered around for awhile. we walked down by the waterfront and there was this little park area with very flat grass, which riley said would be perfect for bocce. so we found some rocks approximately the right size, and played bocce ha ha. we were a little scared when a semi-official looking man walked by, but he was doing something to the lights and didn't seem to care what we were doing. i had one miss-throw where i nearly broke the sundial sculpture ha ha.

after that we saw a fun looking playground with a lighthouse so we climbed that and played on the slides and swings for awhile. and we saw this weird sculpture thing at the edge of the water called the 'water whirler' with a sign that said there would be a 'performance' at 6. it was just after 5, so we walked further down the waterfront and were wasting time until 6. we wandered into the bose store where they had just finished setting up this theatre demo room and they offered to give us the show. it was pretty cool, very good marketing. after wandering back to the water whistler just before 6 we waited for like 20 minutes and nothing happened. there were a few other people looking like they were waiting too, but they gradually left. we were very confused. so we went back to the hostel and i made the rest of the bread into pbj for my overnight bus ride, and we played cards for a little bit, and then i had to say goodbye a little after 7.

i caught a $1 city bus to the train station where my overnight bus left from, and successfully found the (double decker!) intercity bus and told the driver my name and got on (i had booked online). i had my completely stuffed backpack and pillow with various things stuffed in it, so i took up 2 full seats, but there did not seem to be a shortage of seats. it's a 12 hour ride, so i was planning on reading linguistics until i got car sick and then sleeping the rest of the way, but i never got to the reading ha ha. we stopped twice at gas stations to use the bathroom and get food. i took out my contacts and put on comfy pants at the first one, and slept thru the second one. we arrived in auckland just before 7 am (it was still dark), and i walked back to ih as the sun rose.

i went to step class and studied saturday, and then that night was the all blacks rugby game against england. ej, sophie, danielle, courtney, kendall, and kendall's sister kelsey and i all had seats together and we took the bus (public transport to rugby games is free if you show them your ticket) and after walking almost all the way around the stadium we found our seats, which were pretty close to the field. there was some sort of sword fight with fireworks and stuff that was somehow related to england, and then the all blacks did the haka, which was really what i was most excited for and was a little anticlimactic. the game was exciting, england scored first, but we ended up winning like 37 to 20 or something like that. it seems like rugby games go so much faster than football, probably because they're not constantly stopping the clock. there was this really friendly lady behind us who asked us where we were from and had been to every one of our states (ny, connecticut, arizona, and wisconsin). she and her husband have a used book selling business so she goes to conferences in the states all the time for that. she told us how a long time ago she had fallen in love with a mexican guy in arizona and it was cute. there was also this really drunk guy on the other side behind us who was really funny. there was this girl a few rows in front with this brightly colored knitted hat, and at one point he yelled "sit down woman! f-ing tea cozy" (referring to her hat) and we all died laughing. and he liked asked the lady if she was in charge of us and called her mum and she was playing along and he offered us beer and she was like 'can mum have a beer?' and suggested that he buy us all some nice wine instead ha ha. the crowd also did the wave for a long time, i think it went all the way around like 8 times, which i have never seen before. very impressive. i guess the terraces, where we sat at the blues game, is the rowdy section, and the wave would be almost dead and get to there and they would restart it again. by the end everyone was flinging beer bottles and assorted other things up in the air. but it was all in good fun.

after the game we took the bus back, and the ih kids were celebrating ollie's birthday (which is on monday) but i had not studied so i came back and did a little of that and went to bed. today i have been good and other than going to step class and doing this i have studied lots of linguistics for my final tomorrow. then computer science is on wednesday, which i am much more worried for, so i should probably get on that.

last week of classes

so, i'm officially done with classes here! now 4 tests in the next month and i'm done. crazyness.

monday was the queen's birthday so we had no school, and serita left and it was very sad. my big computer science project was due wednesday, so that's pretty much all i did monday and tuesday. the project was to make a program that calculates the likelihood of a phylogenetic tree given a tree structure and sequence alignment of DNA, and then optimize the branch lengths of the tree to give the maximum likelihood. we were given a java package with a whole bunch of useful pre-written classes, only we didn't get any documentation for it so that was slightly frustrating to try to figure out. there is an online class forum where i got a lot of help from the various comp sci kids in the class, and i ended up going to see alexei (the prof) on tuesday for help and he was really nice and helpful. i think the entire project works, although it is extremely slow. it took over an hour on my computer to run the 'efficient' algorithm, and i left the slow brute force version running all night and it was still not done after 8 hours. there was a 10% bonus for efficient programs, i think it's safe to say i did not get that ha ha. but hypothetically it gives the right answer, so yay for that.

after that was done i was allowed to do fun things again, so sophie, kendall, ej, hayden and i went to see indiana jones at the cinema on queen street on wednesday night. kendall was super excited cause she's an anthro major and there's lots of archeology in it. i had never seen any indiana jones movies before, but it's not the sort of thing you need background for. it was pretty intense, i can't decide if the alien thing was too weird, or cool ha ha. there was this thing about how some native group in south america bind their infants' heads so they grow in this elongated shape to worship their gods (which according to the movie were really aliens with heads shaped like that) which is apparently a real thing. crazyness.

after the movie we went to bluestone because the other ih kids were supposed to be there, but they had gone to a new sketchy wednesday night bar up symonds st in mt. eden, so we just hung out there and sophie and kendall got drinks, and then we came back and went to sleep.

thursday and friday i had my last 3 classes, and got back my second linguistics paper analyzing the actress in whale rider's speech to decide if she was a new zealander, and i got a lower numerical grade than my first paper, but it was an a and the first one was a b+ so i'm not sure how that works. maybe everyone just did worse on the second paper cause the prof didn't talk about the material we needed for it until the day it was due. there are also going to be substantial essays on all of my finals except comp sci which i am not looking forward to. i don't think i've had essay tests since the 11th grade regents exam. blah.

friday was the aucc club dinner which i initially didn't know if i wanted to go because it cost $25, but the menu sounded really yummy (turkish/mediterranean food) and canoe club events are always fun. the invite thing said it was "a classy affair" and someone responded with:

in my 9 years of canoe club i have seen many many things from the mundane to unbelievable. So it is always surprising to see something that is truely original. With a couple of dinners a year plus extras for special event i have probably been to over 20 club dinners none of which could be called classy. Can we do this?
To do this we should "try" to avoid some of the things that have inhibited previous dinners from being classy such as:
-No stealing pot plants
-No half time shot rounds
-No animal eye ball eating
-No curry sculling competitions
-No bring your little brother who passes out face down in his main
-No lazy susan drinking games
-No pizza food fights
-No trowing up at the table
-No stealing glassware
-No throwing up in your handbag
-No sing happy birthday 8 times to the bemusement of everybody in the restaurant if it is nobodies birthday.
-No random speeches
-No sex in the champagne room
if we could keep to all this we might have a chance...however it might be boring.

and

"Among many memorable past events, perhaps "No presidential spews in the doorway at or before 8pm" could have been added to your list Craig?"

apparently there has only been one past club dinner where they have not been kicked out of the restaurant. so you see the entertainment potential was quite high. and natasha said she could give me a ride so i got my ticket on thursday. she picked me at 6:45 and we drove over to ponsonby, a central suburb where there are lots of little bars and restaurants and shops and also nice houses. i wore serita's kimono dress with leggings under, and my white cardigan, and i was scared i was going to be over dressed, especially when natasha was wearing jeans, but there were people wearing like, prom dresses so i was a happy medium.

once we got there everyone gradually arrived and there was lots of socialization. natasha and i were sitting on a kind of bench against the wall on one side of a big table, so we sort of stayed where we were and different people circulated around and talked to us. jessica, who is american and i knew from fulljames and victoria, who is a first year kiwi like natasha sat with us and they are both quite talkative and funny, and kristen who is an older member of the club and is also very outgoing and funny joined us and it was fun. before i left i had been talking to molly and she said she and peter were riding bikes there from her flat, which is pretty far, and i was not sure how the whole classy outfit was going to work with a long bike ride, but i guess toni ended up giving them a ride.

mai arrived and had heaps of wine which some people had quite a lot of ha ha. somehow peter ended up next to me during the actual dinner and at first he was entertaining but after he had told me about 12 times how he hadn't been drunk in 8 weeks and how drunk he was it got a bit old. that and the eating of his food with his hands instead of silverware. anyway dinner was delicious i had some vegetarian filo pastry thing. and there was a belly dancer, who chose several of the guys to come dance with her which was pretty funny. after more socialization desert came, which was turkish delight, which i had never had before but i guess is quite popular here, it's kind of like big soft squares of gum drop material, covered in powdered sugar. they were ok, but from all the hype i was kind of expecting better.

the closest we came to rowdyness was our table and molly's table throwing things at each other, starting with pieces of wax from the candles on the tables (which peter had been putting in his mouth fully lit earlier in the evening), pieces of the flowers, wine corks, and napkins. everyone lost interest before that got too rowdy though, and after a while more it was announced that we were moving on to a bar called grand central just down the street and people gradually filtered out (marking the second voluntary leaving of a club dinner, as far as i know). i'm not sure where it came from but victoria had this hand symbol for "extreme" followed by anything, including "drunken walking" and "whitewater kayaking" which was really funny. we also had hand symbols where she was a duck, natasha was an elephant, and i was a moose. we would just randomly make the signs at each other throughout the night.

at grand central there was a live band doing like old soul music (lots of aretha franklin), which i initially thought was cool, but it was quite loud which made talking to people rather difficult. there was a room in the back with couches and a fireplace so most of us sat in there and it was warm and dark and i was getting quite sleepy, so natasha and i left sometime in the 12'oclock hour since she had to drive home too which is kinda far i guess.

also, i had called andrew about kite surfing on thursday and he said he had a lot of people coming but he could squeeze me in, but he wouldn't be able to pick me up from the train station. after he sent out the text with the times and stuff on friday night he called to give me the numbers of the other people going and he said one of them could probably give me a ride. however we were driving to dinner when he called, and i had nothing to write with, so he sent me a text message with 4 phone numbers. so once we got to dinner i proceeded to send a text to them all saying "hi i'm going kitesurfing with andrew tomorrow and i was wondering if you were going via downtown/if i could bum a ride" and natasha and i had a very complicated time of me reading the numbers from the text to her so she could put them in her phone to read back to me as i dialed. but 2 of the 4 responded (and there is a good chance some of the numbers got mixed up somewhere along the way) and the first one said they could get me on the corner of k rd and symonds st at 8:45 am.

that meant i got about 6 hours of sleep, but i was there awkwardly waiting on time, and the guy saw me and it wasn't nearly as weird/awkward as it could have been. i don't remember his name but he was a british guy who had been hoping to do a working holiday here but he hasn't been able to find work so he's probably going back to the uk soon. when we got to andrew's it turned out he had messed up the tide timing so we had to wait a little while for there to be some water along the beach, but it wasn't a big deal. besides me there was the guy who gave me the ride, who had had one lesson, another british guy who was a complete beginner, a girl from auckland named catherine who was also a complete beginner who was really friendly and was sad i'm going home cause we could have been kitesurfing buddies if we had both stuck with it, 2 german guys (1 of them was pretty pro), and a younger guy who had had 3 lessons and just bought his own kite and stuff. then we all piled into andrews jeep (and another instructor and the last kid's mom took another car down) and drive down thru the pasture, where the cows chased us ha ha. andrew said he had a bunch of japanese people and they were walking thru the pasture and the cows started coming over and he jokingly told them not to stand still and started running, and everyone ran for their lives and vaulted over a fence and rolled in a ditch and he had to sit down from laughing so hard ha ha.

when we got down to the beach we chose our kites, and andrew suggested i take the 8m but he said the wind was supposed to pick up as the day went on, so i was a chicken and took a 6 instead. however the wind was pretty light and on the occasion that i got up, i would forget to keep doing power strokes and run out of power. and instead of picking up the wind more or less died off to the point where none of us could even keep our kites in the air. after standing in the water trying to launch my kite for what felt like ages i was freezing and some of the others had already taken their kites in so i wound up my lines and walked in and stood around for awhile. then the other instructor who was standing with us said it was picking up again and convinced me to go back out, so he helped me relaunch my kite and i went back out, where the wind promptly died again. after a few futile attempts andrew came over and we all deflated our kites and went back in. overall not the best lesson ever, but i did do well on the previous lesson so i'm not completely frustrated. and i think i got better at keeping the kite in the air and not crashing it every time i fell/didn't get up. andrew said 'now linnell what did we learn today?' the answer to which was, go with the right kite for the current wind, because the meterologists don't really know what theyre talking about and you can always switch kites later if you need to. after we drove back up i got changed in the bathroom and everyone paid and said goodbye and andrew hugged me (cause it was my last lesson, very sad) ha ha it was cute. the same guy drove me back to town and dropped me on the corner, and i was back to ih by 5ish.

the ih formal dinner was that night at 6:30, and i wasn't sure i'd be back in time (when the days were longer it would be 8 or 9 by the time i got back), but i had plenty of time so i took a shower and a power nap, and then got ready and wore the exact same outfit as the night before.

since kendall, ej, courtney, and barret all left for australia that morning, sophie and i were buddies and when we went down we were some of the first ones there, so we picked a table, and ollie, hannah, lucy, alex and cameron joined us, and ace and brian were late so they had to sit with some random people. there were nice table clothes and wine glasses and stuff and little menus which listed vegetarian samosas as a dinner option, and chocolate mud cake for desert which we were all excited about. after waiting forever and eyeing the rolls we all had on our plates (ollie gave up and ate his) clive (the ih head guy) welcomed us and a maori guy who lives here gave a speech in maori (which was the fastest i have ever heard anyone speak maori, i guess that's cause usually it's more chanting/singing that i hear rather than regular speech), and we were allowed to have the entree (appetizer), which was smoked salmon and some potatoe cake thing, which several of us donated to ollie ha ha.

after more waiting the vice-chancellor gave a speech that wasn't too long, and quite humorous. the main jokes were that clive had called him by the wrong name introducing him, and insulting otago university. both were used several times. then it was finally food time, but clive announced the order of tables that got to go up to the buffet, and we were second to last. ollie, being a big jerk, promptly left us to go sit with brian and ace who were at an earlier table. we gave him death stares for the rest of the night. the food was basically normal ih food. the vegetarian option was the hilight of the meal, although it did not resemble samosas whatsoever, it was like pita bread with feta cheese and sundried tomatoes.

when the eating was winding down this large man came over from the head table and sat in ollie's former seat and was like 'i was bored at that table so thought i'd come meet some new people' and he proceeded to show us how to make a chicken out of a cloth napkin (which they had at the head table while we had paper ones) ha ha and he offered to smuggle us over a bottle of wine from the head table cause they had a lot but we said it was alright, but if he could put in a word for us to be the first table to get dessert it would be much appreciated. he was really funny, and we decided he was a big improvement over ollie ha ha. after more waiting i looked around and discovered that dessert was just out and there was already a long line and it wasn't by table. there was pavlova, fruit salad, and BANANA cake. apparently only the head table got the chocolate mud cake, which made me very upset. i ate the chocolate off the top of the banana cake and tried to give the rest to alex. during desert one of the waiter people came over with a bottle of wine and offered it to us and said it was from the head table and we thought it was just like, they had extras and were sharing with everyone, but then we realized it was only our table and it was from our new friend ha ha.

sophie and i made a fairly early exit because there was a space-themed party at colm's flat in ponsonby, and molly and jessica were going so we were going to meet them there, but first we had to work out some sort of costume. we ended up going to the mini mart just outside and paying $3.20 for 80m of aluminum foil, which we made antenna head bands and bracelets out of. then we made our way to the link bus and paid $1.60 and proceeded to wear our antennas and giggle about everything on the way there. we started explaining why every joke either of us said was funny, which just made it more funny.

we found our way there from the bus stop pretty easily, and since we had taken the bus the others weren't there yet so we awkwardly stood outside on the street (still in our antennas) because we didn't really know most of the people and we also did not see many people in costumes so we wanted to make our entrance with the others (who along with craig had also constructed some sort of alien costume). eventually we saw them coming down the street, all 3 of them wearing kayak helmets with lightbulbs attached and various glittery star decorations. we went in, and discovered there weren't very many canoe club people so sophie and i were glad we had waited to go in. we socialized with some random people, including a russian guy who made us guess where he was from based on his accent, and we failed, and i proceeded to have a rather long discussion about linguistics with him which apparently bored everyone else standing with us ha ha. peter and jamie were there again, and this time peter was high rather than drunk and much less obnoxious. he was wearing a hoodie with a skeleton on it, and purple velvet pants which he says he wears to uni and stuff ha ha. sophie and i also found a book called like "more fish in the sea: how to catch a girl in the cbd" which was full of fishing-related puns about picking up chicks in auckland and was quite entertaining. at one point sophie and i were waving our antennas at each other and beeping pretending we were communicating ha ha. we just sat around being giggly and got sleepy and peter was giving molly and jess a ride back but i did not want to ride with him cause he was high so sophie and i walked back and it was kinda drizzly raining but it wasn't too bad, and only took like half an hour.

then i got up at 9:45 this morning to go to step class, again on like 6 hours, so i may take a nap now. or study. ha.

Serita's last blog :(

hi for my last blog :(

so i left off on thursday night. sometime during thursday night or friday linnell got emails from various aucc people about how 1. we may or may not be able to get a ride back on sunday from the trip 2. we probably weren't going to have kayak transportation, so we would maybe get to raft but not kayak 3. there was another trip that the instructors planned but it was full 4. the trip we were going on, planned by lee, wasn't club approved or anything, which is why there were so many problems 5. The Killer Bees and the Tribesmen, 2 major nz gangs, were having their annual "meeting" in the same area we would be in, and might be camping where we were planning on camping.

linnell had about a 24 hr mental breakdown about whether or not to go, and was very angry at lee and herself because had she talked to someone earlier we could have been in on the trip with the instructors. i told her repeatedly that we should not go, and reassured her that we would have a good weekend anyway, and i looked for some stuff for us to do. eventually she decided that we didn't have a tent or anything yet, and it wasn't really worth it. so we decided not to go, so then i got to plan!

i decided we would go to the sky tower one day because we had been talking about maybe doing that (but it would be a bit costly, so i figured that i wasn't spending the $30 for kayaking plus gas money, so i could spend that on the skytower) and then we would do the coast to coast walk across auckland. i researched the skytower because we had gotten lots of different information regarding costs (because there are like 50 different levels and options you can chose from) and i decided the best deal would be to go to the revolving restaurant, orbit. there was a $30 minimum per person there, but you got to go up to the observation deck for free if you go to orbit, and just going up to the observation deck would have cost $25 so we figured it was worth it. so i made a reservation for lunch on saturday.

all this planning took friday morning (i also patched linnell's jeans finally) and we did some other random chore-ish stuff, i don't really remember. then we went to linnell's two afternoon classes, and then linnell went to step class, then we had ih dinner, and then nelly worked on her project and i read one of my books that i had taken out from the ih library.

so saturday we got up and linnell went to step class againnnnn and then we got fancied up and went to the sky tower. you can't actually go in the bottom of the tower, you have to go into another building in the "sky city" (all the buildings on the same block as the sky tower, owned by one company. there are 2 casinos and 2 hotels and a bunch of restaurants and some other assorted tourist things) and take an escalator down underground to the base of the tower and check in and then get on the elevator which took us up to the observation deck. the elevator has a hole cut in the middle of the floor with a glass panel there so you can watch the inside of the elevator shaft as you go up and up and up (there are also glass windows in the side so you can see outside too), it was super cool. so we got to the observation deck and it was soo cool and linnell took zillions of pictures of course, and we played the trivia fact games for a bit and watched part of a video about how the sky tower was built (the only facts i really remember are that 1. while building the sky tower, workers ate like 245,000 meat pies and that 2. one of the major problems with the proposed tower was how they would get the crane down at the tower's completion, so a renowned kiwi engineer came out of retirement to invent a new crane system that they could use.) also, the sky tower is i think 4 m taller than the eiffel tower, and is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere.

and then we went up another few floors to the restaurant level and went in. the center part of the floor is stationary and is where the kitchen is. then the next ring out away from the kitchen walls is also stationary and is where the hostess' desk is and where the servers have little stations with water pitchers and stuff. and then the next ring from that is the actual seating and that part revolves (it was a little slower than i thought, but probably any faster would make people sick. we did make it around the whole way 1.5 times though in about 2 hours). there are two rows of seating, the inner one is booths, and the outer one is tables, and is where we got seated (i thought i would be kind of pissed if i had to sit at a booth because it's just not the same). and then there's like a foot wide ring outside of the revolving one, which is stationary, and linnell set her purse on that until she realized it was not traveling with us haha.

so we took a very long time deciding what to order and how to make as close to $60 as possible. we ended up sharing bread and olive oil, and linnell got an omelet (which is probably the best omelet i've ever had, i don't usually like them because i don't really love the eggy texture) and i got a fruit salad with yogurt and muesli (granola) and pumpkin soup. and then we also got 3 mini danishes and a croissant with honey to share too. everything was extremely delicious and the honey was sooo cool, it came in the honeycomb and then when you tried to cut through it, the liquidy part spilled out and it was just soo good. while we were eating, we saw people doing the sky walk, which is where you go up another level above orbit, and you get on harnesses and stuff and walk on a ring around the outside. when we were done eating, we had our server take our photo and then we paid ($60.50!) and left. then we went back down to the observation deck for a little while more and we played with this computer thing that had a photo of what you could see out that side of the tower, and then had points of interest on that photo, and you could just touch them and it would tell you all about whatever you had chosen. we also saw people doing the sky jump which is a "free fall" (it really isn't free fall) jump down from the sky walk level which looked pretty cool. i think i would be more nervous doing that then i was sky diving. then we decided we were ready to go, so we left and walked to this souvenir shop linnell wanted to go to and she looked at shirts (she wants one with a map of nz desperately) and i looked at boots. i figured ugg like boots would be cheaper here, and they are a little bit, but i wasn't sure if i could get mom and dad to pay for them, and maybe i'll change my mind by next winter, so i didn't get any. plus i'm not really in excess with packing space haha. the weather report had said rain for saturday which is why we had planned the sky tower for that day, so we wouldn't be walking in the rain, but after some early morning fog, it had been sunny and nice all day (which was good for the sky tower view). however, as we were walking back to ih it started pouring and we were passed by all the ih who had gone to play paintball running down the street. we had dinner at ih, and decided we didn't feel like going to the domain to watch everyone playing possum for ace's birthdays, so we had another exciting night of computer science and movies.

sunday morning we woke up and for some reason took a really long time getting dressed and ready to go, but at 10:30 we left to walk to princes warf, where the coast to coast walk started. we got there around 11, and there was a huggggee cruise ship docked, and linnell and i decided that after the mediterranean, a nice cruise is in our family vacation plans. so then we headed out, and after getting .5 km, linnell had to go potty so we went to britomart and used their bathrooms which smelled SOOO badly like beets. we headed out again and walked for a while until we got to the domain, where we had a little trouble finding where to go but we made it. sometimes there are little yellow arrows marking the coast to coast trail, and sometimes not.

then we went on to mount eden (ha ha not edna), where we went to the summit, which was really pretty, with the whole crater all intact and grassy. we had a little snacky there, and then went back down. there was this little walked on path inside the edge of the crater and linnell was like "yahhh let's do it!!!" so i let her go and i took photos, and as she was going in (past the sign that said "DANGER DO NOT go inside crater") this asian group went past us and this middle aged guy was like making noises trying to get our attention and at first we weren't sure if he was yelling at linnell or joking, but then he made the motion of like rolling down the hill, and we assumed he was joking so we laughed and kept going. linnell didn't die and we went on, getting a little lost again, but it was okay. the exit that we went out through was like in someone's driveway, but that's what the signs and our map said to do, so we did it.

we kept walking, and both of us really had to pee, and my knee was hurting (i apparently injured it last week sometime) and i wanted ice cream, and we were all around just a mess. finnnnallly we got to the bathrooms in cornwall park and took care of some of our problems there. then we went to the ice cream place there that we went before and got ice cream, and kept walking, much happier. we were going to play on the fun playground toy we played on before, but there was a huge line for it, so we kept walking. as we left cornwall park (we decided not to summit one tree hill again), we once again saw the gelato stand that we couldn't go to last time because we had just gotten ice cream in the park, and were once again quite angry. from there we walked down manukau rd for awhile, into onehunga, where we took a very short break at jellicoe park which was really cute, but i wanted to be done as soon as possible by that point so i did not let linnell look for a bathroom there. bad choice. by the time we got to the onehunga lagoon, our destination, we were both DYING for a bathroom, and luckily we found one, although it was extremely dark and scary and someone had written "fear" on the walls in both of our stalls haha.

after taking a quick victory picture by the sign at the end of the walkway, we walked to the nearest bus stop and luckily the first bus that came was going to symonds street even tho it wasn't the one linnell had written down. we got on the bus and i was feeling quite sleepy. we went home and showered and ate dinner in ih, and everyone was going to the mexican cafe by the sky tower for lucy's birthday, but i was super sleepy and linnell didn't really feel like it so we didn't. we came back and linnell did a little weeding out of stuff for me to bring home, and i skipped about 300 pages and read the last chapter of my book. then we watched "the nanny diaries" and then linnell watched some arrested development, and i fell asleep.

this morning we've woken up and are both sitting on our computers. i have to shower and finish packing, and then i'm have to catch a 2 oclock bus to the airport. byyeeee

serita's second week!

serita again! because i'm the coolest! this may or may not be my last blog, depending on whether or not i have time after this weekend/before i come home. so i will go through this week because linnell has been bugging me to.

so monday linnell went to classes in the morning and i went to the auckland art gallery. there is a main gallery and a new gallery which are not in the same building, but are on two blocks right next to each other. it wasn't a very far walk but when i got to the main gallery, it said it was closed for renovation until 2010! i was a little angry but i went to the new gallery and that was open. there were only two exhibits there so i only spent like an hour and a half there. the first exhibit was a 50 year celebration of one of the first art shows solely for maori artists, and it featured 7 (i think) maori artists and told their history and stuff. one of them was a famous all blacks player, and his biography talked about how he was a symbol of the "everything guy" who was a sports figure and an artist all at once. the second exhibit was about earth and ecology and junk like that. there were some photos of whales on a beach decomposing and stuff and that was real gross. there was also an "arrangement" of junk like old office supplies and i was just like that's not art. but it was still cool to go see.

i came back to ih and waited until someone opened the gate for me because i had forgotten my cell phone to call linnell to let me in. someone did let me in after a few minutes and then linnell and i just hung out in her room until dinner. after dinner, we were going to roll training which i was really really dreading. we walked to the uni quad, and met everyone else there. we rode with hayden, isaac, and molly out to the northcote pool, which is on the north shore, over the harbour bridge. the pool is kind of under a big tent thing, not really inside. we got our bathing suits on and i wore one of the stolen polypro fleeces, and we got our boats and paddles and skirts, and linnell took me to squirrel, the one who taught her most of the times, and she started teaching me how to paddle. it turns out i am extremely uncomfortable being upside down inside my boat under water ha ha. i somewhat had fun though for the most part trying to learn. linnell came and taught me how to t rescue which she said would be more useful, which i suppose it is. it's where you're flipped over upside down and instead of rolling yourself up with your paddle, you hit your boat so people can hear you, and then they come over and you hold onto their boat to flip yourself back up. i can do it, but i don't like having to wait for someone else to realize i'm flipped over and then come over. i kept swimming out instead of waiting ha ha which made everyone laugh/yell at me. (not really yelling don't worry). so i started to dread this weekend more and more because a. it's going be extremely cold camping and b. i'm going to be doing a lot of swimming in the freezing rivers. but i have since come to terms with that. at the end of roll training i was getting a little tired/frustrated so linnell had colm teach me how to paddle right. then we got out and took really quick showers because the drains were clogged so the shower water was pooling disgustingly.

then we went to a bar and linnell had promised hot chocolate, but they didn't have it, because we did not go to sausalito's where they usually go, instead it was called 'slip in' and we went there because mo was there and he was leaving. a maori guy with dreadlocks who i think is named matt was also there and he and molly were discussing maori bc she has a test in that class and he is doing maori immersion at his school, and molly's favorite word is 'tupatupa' which means helicopter which is quite fun indeed. matt said there is a whole movement to re-invent new non-english sounding words for all the modern stuff, and everyone agreed that would be a really cool job, just inventing words. roll training made me super hungry so when we got back we ate quite a bit of snack food, and then went to bed.

tuesday, we went to the museum of transportation and technology (motat). it was about an hour walk away, which was not so fun, but it wasn't that bad, it was entirely flat/downhill once we got to k rd. we got there at 11ish, and there was a "voyager ride" at 11:30, so we walked around the farm implements building, and as we walked by something, a little boy (there were a lot of children on a field trip there) said "is that a jetski??" it was very funny. turns out it was an engine or water pump or something. at 11:30 we went on the voyager ride which was a "4d experience". basically we just went in and sat and watched and listened to a movie of a kind of video game roller coaster ride while we felt like we were riding along in the cart in the movie. it was kind of strange and we weren't really sure where we were supposed to be going, but it was fun. linnell guessed that it was just whatever the designers felt like putting in. there were little children in front of us who had some kind of mental problem, and they were really really excited, it was cute. after we got off we walked around the communications building and an old guy working there showed us four different phone systems nz has used which was pretty cool. there were a bunch of old school dial phones you could dial and call another one, and then watch all the connections happening in the switch board. linnell couldn't figure out why the phone didn't work, until we realized that she was turning the dial the wrong way and we thought she was retarded, but when the man was showing us stuff he told us that the dials are opposite in new zealand. and it's not like the roads where it's a british thing, just new zealand.

then we went to the victorian village for a while and ate our sandwiches for lunch. then we took the tram to the aviation center and saw a flying boat which was sooooooo cool. (on the brochure it said there were flying boat tours on the weekend and we took that to mean a tour IN the flying boat and were sad that we missed it, but after seeing the huge old boat with wings that was very much a museum exhibit we realized it probably meant tours OF the flying boat). the flying boats were part of the TEAL airline (which eventually became air new zealand) up to the 1960s, and they flew flying boats because there weren't runways long enough to accommodate the large planes needed to cross the big water gaps to and from nz, so they would just fly them into and out of the ocean or rivers.

we also found a flight simulator to play with but the tram came soon so we couldn't play on that for long. when we got back to the other motat site, we went in the discovery rooms which were like hands on things which was super fun. among other things we superimposed our faces with a 2-way mirror, built an archway we could stand on, experienced an earthquake, weighed ourselves, played on musical pipes, and played tangrams. we also went to the computers exhibit and linnell had fun looking at that while i played a game about dolphins against a kid in japan on a computer there. we looked quickly at a bicycle exhibit but were pretty bored and running out of time, so after a potty stop we walked back to uni. we went to the computer lab for half an hourish, and i fell asleep there while linnell played on the computer. then we went to computer science, and then went back to ih for dinner, and did homework/watched friends/read/did picture stuff for the rest of the night.

yesterday linnell had class all day, and we needed some more polypro for this weekend and so i walked down to queen street in the morning and looked at kathmandu, a store where linnell had $25 off anything, and they had 3 polypro for $50 which is a good deal, so i scoped things out and then went to another store and bought linnell's greenstone necklace to match the one she got me. then i went to albert park and read for a while and then we met for lunch. i convinced linnell we should go back to ih for lunch, so we did and i ate way too much. then we started walking to her next class, when i remembered we didn't have the kathmandu coupon, so i went back and got that and we met up after her class ended. we walked down to kathmandu and realized her coupon probably wouldn't work on the sale polypro but it was still a good deal so we each picked on out and got one for sophie who we talked to at lunch about it. we were right, our coupon didn't work, but we're thinking we'll get polypro gloves with that tomorrow.

then we walked back to linnell's other class, anthropology, and i read through that one. i came back to ih and linnell went to step class where sophie and ej met her, and when they got back to ih we all had dinner. everyone said they were going a bar called bluestone at 8, so linnell took a shower and we got ready and went out with sophie, ej, courtney, lucy, barret, brian, ace, cameron, and alex. since i'm legal here, linnell and i both got pineapple malibus, which were yummy! we played a game, categories, where you pick a category and you go around in the circle and everyone has to say something in that category and if you repeat or can't think of one, you have to drink and then pick a new category. it was lots of fun, although only the boys were actually doing the drinking part. also, linnell's camera stopped working, and would not turn on and the lens would not fold in. the batteries were charged, so there was no good reason, and after freaking out for awhile she just put it away in the sock. we came home pretty early and went to bed around 11, and either that night or the next morning when she tried her camera it worked again, although it seems like it makes a lot of noise putting the lens in and out now.

today we got up and went to the auckland museum. it was semi boring but semi interesting. the third floor of it is a war memorial/exhibit about the wars nz has been in, and there was a temporary exhibit i saw advertised for that was paintings by an army artist of iraq and i really wanted to see them, but the exhibit was closed today! not cool. we started on the bottom, looking at pacific artifacts, then maori artifacts, then some old childrens toys/school stuff (and a random elephant in that room).

the second floor (1st floor here) was all natural history stuff, most of which we bypassed on the way to the volcano exhibit which linnell had heard great things about. sure enough, the "what would happen if a volcano erupted in auckland harbour" exhibit was going, and we read some of the exhibit stuff while waiting for our turn, and then we went into this little cottage, and it was like someones living room, with a big glass "window" looking out on the harbour towards rangitoto. first the tv came on, and there was a news story about how there was increasing seismic activity and stuff, and like a geology prof was interviewed and stuff, and then we noticed that out the 'window' there was steam rising off the water, and then there was shaking of the whole house and the tv went black, and out the 'window' we saw this huge plume of smoke and ash and stuff and gradually a new volcano erupted between us and rangitoto and this huge cloud of black smoke came towards us until the shaking got very intense and all the lights went off. then the lights came back on and we could see a new island out in the harbour. very cool. after that linnell continued to be fascinated with all the volcano information (they had the actual fossils that show there were maori people on motutapu watching rangitoto erupt there!), and i went upstairs looking for army art, and after i didn't find any and she was finally done we did a brief walk thru of the wwII era nz village set up, and then made our way back down to the exit.

we had lunch (pbj as usual) on a bench by these little ponds with ducks and geese (which i had confused with swans) i picked out as we were walking there thru the domain (the big park the museum is in) then we wanted ice cream and we had seen signs for "tip top ice cream" in the dairies on the way over, but when we went in, it was like wrapped ice cream bar things, and no scoopable ice cream, so we went to a little bakery and linnell got a apple turn over and i got a chocolate fudge bar, so we walked and ate on the way back home.

at five linnell went to class and i went with ej, sophie, courtney, and danielle to get seats at kendall's kapa haka (maori performing arts) performance. we stopped at subway on the way there and it smelled super good but i restrained myself because i had brought a luna bar and there was supposed to be food after the performance. so we went and everyone said to get there early because the seats filled up very quickly but when we got there at 5:30 (half an hour early) almost all the seats were already taken. luckily we got the last row that was open and sat down and saved a seat for linnell. she got there a few minutes after it started and it was soo cool. the stage one (intro level) had probably like 40 people in it and they sang and the girls did poi for a few songs and then the boys came forward and did their haka, which is very fierce. some of them look kind of funny sticking out their tongues and bulging out their eyes, but it was still pretty intimidating. but it was super cool.

then stage three came out and there were like 16 of them, and they did pretty much the same thing, but more advanced. then they came out in two groups and each performed a song that their group choreographed. then afterwards they had food (some weird sandwiches and wraps, pumpkin soup which was veryyyy good, and banana bread with chocolate frosting, which linnell actually ate!) so we stood around and ate and talked about the performance and then we decided we were going to go to the ice bar so we walked back to ih so everyone could get warm stuff on.

after everyone was ready, we walked to the viaduct where the ice bar is. while walking there we saw this billboard of the back of a girl wearing a skirt, and the skirt was like, real material that blew in the wind, and as we watched it blew ALL the way up to reveal a lot of skin. it was pretty funny. linnell and i had coupons, yay! so we got into the bar and one drink for $25, which is a rip off but it was still worth it. so we paid and then we all got suited in our parkas and two sets of gloves, and linnell and danielle got boots because they were wearing flip flops. then we were told the rules (a max of 3 drinks, only 25 minutes spent in the actual ice bar, hold on to your drink with two hands because it's easy to drop) it was kinda funny because they make such a big deal of how the cold is so extreme and you will feel the alcohol more and don't use your camera/electronics because the cold will mess it up, etc, but -5 C is like 25 F, which is warmer than the majority of the winter in rochester, and i have never had any electronic problems, even taking pictures while snowboarding. anyway, then we got to go in! it was a lot smaller than we had imagined, but it was still really cool! everything is made out of ice, including the cups, and there are ice sculptures all over, and ice benches (that are covered with deer skin-which kendall pointed out had spots, meaning it was from babies!) and a bar made out of ice and cups made out of ice. they only serve drinks with smirnoff vodka (in all sorts of flavours tho) since it won't freeze, and they have fun names of drinks like santa's sleigh and frisky penguin (which is what linnell got) i got a pina coolada and then we looked at sculptures/sat down on the benches, got our picture taken by the guy who worked there (the real reason they don't want you to bring your own camera, so they can sell you photos. ej brought hers anyway, but we didn't take any photos in there with it) and were silly. we were all sucking the edges of our glasses, trying to eat them, with minor success. our 25 minutes was soon over, and linnell really wanted to drop her glass before we left just because it's fun, so she "accidently" tipped it off the table it was on, and it didn't even break! haha so then we went out and got our cold weather clothes taken off, and then looked at our photos. one was $25 so we decided to split it 6 ways and get it since we can make copies of it. we ended up getting 5 copies as well as a digital version online for the $25, so linnell and i are just sharing for now and we'll make copies later.

after that we decided to go to another bar, shadows (the auckland uni campus bar), which is where the haka "after party" was. we walked there and then ordered wedges (which always come with sour cream here) because linnell said they were sooo good and it would probably be my last chance. we went and sat down and while we were waiting for them, a whole bunch of police came in. they walked around for a few seconds, and then came over to our table (out of everyone we apparently looked the most sketchy or the least of-age) and asked to see our ids. so we gave them our passports and they shined their flashlights in our faces to see if we matched our photo, and it was a little intimidating but it was fine. the one who looked at mine said "wow you just turned a few months ago" haha. after they looked at our ids, they looked around for a few more minutes and then left. then our wedges came! they were very good, they're basically like potato wedges that mom makes without the crumbly stuff on the outside, and with sour cream and marinara sauce. yum. (normally they have breading/flavour too, these were not the best)

after we finished eating we decided we were pretty ready to go, so we left and walked home. right as we got to the bottom of the hill, we saw ace ollie, brian, lucy and everyone going out to "find a sketchy bar" and they told us that at least one of us had to come with them. while we were at the ice bar they had climbed up the crane at the construction site right next to ih, which is the third time brian and ollie have done it, and linnell really wants to cause the view must be amazing and she likes adventures. we all decided not join the sketchy bar hunt, although kendell and ej said if we had met them at the top of the hill, they probably would have gone but they did not want to climb all the way back up agian. ha ha proving our laziness is not only me and linnell. so then we came back and went to bed.

this morning nelly woke up to get us breakfast and is now working on her computer science/facebooking, and i'm doing this, then i have to fix her pants, for an exciting time. this afternoon we're going to classes, and tomorrow/sunday is kayaking. byeee